He's the Good Guy, he HAS to win!
Like when I was little, my mom tells the story of when Batman was in a very bad predicament, and my mom asked if he was going to die, I said "NO, he has to be on next weeks episode!"
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I know all that Mikey, I still find it funny though, I keep telling my wife that their not going to kill anybody because they've got Machine Guns ... ;)

My absolute favorite in this regard is in every movie, if someone is standing almost completely out in the open with only a single iron hand rail between them and the guy with the machine gun, every shot from the machine gun will hit the iron railing.

[edit] and of course the bullets never ricochet badly, either.

> The bad guys still do that today! All the gangs have the small automatic
> weapons or semi-auto pistols, and they pump out sooo many bullets and hit
> everything, including sometimes, their intended target! I think they should
> make time on the range MANDATORY for all gun purchases! Hit what you mean to,
> not the neighbors!

That's terrific, except do you really think the gangs got the weapons anywhere that would require them to take this course? Hint: they don't buy them in stores.

When I was in Chicago last week I saw the 3-D, IMAX version of "The Polar Express". I know some critics thought the digital characters looked creepy, and not life-like, but I saw them as the next step in digitizing real looking human characters for movies. The advantage of computer generated actors is that they are not bound by physical laws like gravity, and in this fantasy movie, that freedom was used to great effect. Now, the plot was not exactly Dickens, but it was fun and it may one day become a classic, especially the 3-D version (perhaps packaged with 3-D glasses).

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> When I was in Chicago last week I saw the 3-D, IMAX version of "The Polar
> Express". I know some critics thought the digital characters looked creepy,
> and not life-like, but I saw them as the next step in digitizing real looking
> human characters for movies. The advantage of computer generated actors is
> that they are not bound by physical laws like gravity, and in this fantasy
> movie, that freedom was used to great effect. Now, the plot was not exactly
> Dickens, but it was fun and it may one day become a classic, especially the
> 3-D version (perhaps packaged with 3-D glasses).

I haven't seen this, but watching other recent CGI movies like Finding Nemo, I think I noticed at least one element that's missing from current computer animations. Texture mapping of skin features is essentially a two-dimensional process, but real skin is seen in three dimensions. You see the redness from the blood flowing through capillaries millimeters beneath the skin, bruising and tattoos have depth to them, etc. There are subtle changes to this depth appearance looking from different angles as well. This three-dimensional environment is not simulated, so moving human characters look kinda off.

> I haven't seen this, but watching other recent CGI movies like Finding Nemo, I
> think I noticed at least one element that's missing from current computer
> animations. Texture mapping of skin features is essentially a two-dimensional
> process, but real skin is seen in three dimensions. You see the redness from
> the blood flowing through capillaries millimeters beneath the skin, bruising
> and tattoos have depth to them, etc. There are subtle changes to this depth
> appearance looking from different angles as well. This three-dimensional
> environment is not simulated, so moving human characters look kinda off.

Movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Toy Story" have the advantage of being mostly cartoons, so the occasional "human" figure can get away with looking like a cartoon. If you're suggesting that more realistic human characters might be produced by paying more attention to the three dimentional characteristics of things like skin and hair, that may be true, but traditional films get it right (so do photos, both digital and chemical).

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> Movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Toy Story" have the advantage of being mostly
> cartoons, so the occasional "human" figure can get away with looking like a
> cartoon. If you're suggesting that more realistic human characters might be
> produced by paying more attention to the three dimentional characteristics of
> things like skin and hair, that may be true, but traditional films get it
> right (so do photos, both digital and chemical).

True, but I include movies that attempted to put up relatively convincing actors too, like Final Fantasy.

Using live humans in effects sequences (green-screen, wires, etc) imposes its own set of problems, most notably hazards and discomfort of the actors as well as lighting. That's why a convincing CGI actor would be desirable in some parts.

But how's this for as human as they have got so far.

Aki Ross form Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.



Time at Cas's Place: Thu 06 January 2005, 17:52:45 (GMT Standard Time)

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> But how's this for as human as they have got so far.
>
> Aki Ross form Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
>

Cool, but not photo quality.

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> > But how's this for as human as they have got so far.
> >
> > Aki Ross form Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
> >
>
> Cool, but not photo quality.
>
I know but that would have taken up way too much space and those using a dial up would've been waiting for hours for it to load.

But check out the movie the quality of skin tones/textures really is quite amazing!!

Time at Cas's Place: Thu 06 January 2005, 18:39:35 (GMT Standard Time)

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> > The bad guys still do that today! All the gangs have the small automatic
> > weapons or semi-auto pistols, and they pump out sooo many bullets and
> hit
> > everything, including sometimes, their intended target! I think they
> should
> > make time on the range MANDATORY for all gun purchases! Hit what you mean
> to,
> > not the neighbors!
>
> That's terrific, except do you really think the gangs got the weapons anywhere
> that would require them to take this course? Hint: they don't buy them in
> stores.
>
True but if you were buying guns and reselling them that course would become VERY old VERY quick!
The ones gotten on the street or stolen, I haven't thought up a fix yet.

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just looking Sheryl Crow

C`Mon America 2003

Greetings from Germany NRW
Ulli S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club m7 ©

That's terrific, except do you really think the gangs got the weapons anywhere that would require them to take this course? Hint: they don't buy them in stores.
==========

Your right, but in the Movies they make it sound like all these bad guys are some sort of Elite Guard Unit for the Head Bad Guy. You would thing the Head Bad Guy would see if the guys he hires could hit something else besides thin air ... ;)

the last Day i looked

24 Hours

in Germany the third Step or the third Part, is Cult to looking, for the Freaks only .... :)

Greetings from Germany NRW
Ulli S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club m7 ©

> Your right, but in the Movies they make it sound like all these bad guys are
> some sort of Elite Guard Unit for the Head Bad Guy. You would thing the Head
> Bad Guy would see if the guys he hires could hit something else besides thin
> air ... ;)

Guess it's all still a symptom of what I call in movies "Bad-Guy Disease" (can't hit a main character, unless it's just one ultimately expendable character hit somewhere around the center of the movie). It exists in real life. I've heard stories of a fight in downtown Tacoma 15 or so years back, where something like 4000 rounds were exchanged without hitting any of the participants.

From the song "Cow Pattie"

...And the whole town got as quiet as a church,
When the killer stepped out for the draw.

Forty shots rang out.

Forty people fell.

Patty and the killer missed each other,
But they shot that town to hell.

I figured I'd get some documentation on the shootout I mentioned above. Evidently it was only hundreds of rounds, not thousands. Make what you will about the fact that it was between drug dealers and U.S. Army rangers.

Rebirth comes to Tacoma's hilltop
Tacoma reclaims the streets

> Guess it's all still a symptom of what I call in movies "Bad-Guy Disease"
> (can't hit a main character, unless it's just one ultimately expendable
> character hit somewhere around the center of the movie).

Uh! I can't help it, but I came to think of Brandon Lee in The Crowe!!! The bad guys really hit there! :-(

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I've never seen The Matrix in it's entirety, and I'll never see The Matrix Revolutions. The library's copy of The Seventh Seal is thoroughly scratched, so I guess I won't be able to see that either. What a to-do list I've got...

<li>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is going to suck, but nobody's been able to convince the powers that be to make an &#x30a2;&#x30cb;&#x30e1; of it.</li><li>The Passion of the Clerks may or may not suck. I haven't seen...</li><li>Dogma either, but I've read the screenplay.</li><li>I need to see 28 Days Later.</li><li>The same goes for No Habr&aacute; M&aacute;s Pena Ni Olvido</li><li>Nueve Reinas was good, and</li><li>I haven't seen &#x30de;&#x30eb;&#x30b5;&#x306e;&#x5973; in ages.</li><li>President Clinton: Final Days has been on my list for a while.</li><li>Last but not least, I've got to find a copy of El Chacotero Sentimental</li><li>a copy of Powers of 10, and</li><li>I must get a copy of Milcho Manchevski's masterpiece, Before the Rain.

...&#x266a;Jaws was never my scene / and I don't like Star Wars&#x266b;...

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snip
> href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/">The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
> Galaxy[/url] is going to suck, but nobody's been able to convince the powers
> that be to make an &#12450;&#12491;&#12513; of it.</li><li><a>
snip

Actually the TV series is almost as good as the radio series (both BBC) and the (first 2) books :)

So no need for a movie. But tell that to the estate of Douglas Adams :(

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>Jaws was never my scene / and I don't like Star Wars
>

Bicycle Race - Queen ;)